THE A NE.WYOI!I..i . '- """ :: ::: i '1f\ . 'I'" II /" .,____ _ :: It.:: nu. /1\ \\\ *. o ...., 0 0 . 0 )\ . .,. 111'''' THE TALK OF THE TOWN Notes and Comment T HERE is a striking-and, to some, an infuriating-disparity between the reaction of public opinion to the United States' interven- tion in Central America and the reac- tion to the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan. If President Reagan tries to send more than a few score ad- visers to EI Salvador or a few tens of millions of dollars to the pro-Ameri- can Nicaraguan rebels, he provokes a storm of outrage in Congress and in the public at large-not to men- tion demonstrations and protests in other countries. When he visits the Irish Parliament, members walk out, and nuns take to the streets against him. But when the Soviet Union in- vades Afghanistan with some hundred thousand troops, and proceeds, over a period of almost half a decade, to tear that backward country to pieces, there is relative quiet in the world. In the Soviet Union, of course, there is complete quiet, since all political pro- test (except that directed against other countries) is forbidden. But even out- side it the protest is somehow tepid. There are no demonstrations, for example, on the scale of the ones that occurred around the world to pro- tual and political resources were finite. test the American intervention in The war and the division caused by the Vietnam. It seems that there is a dou- war plunged the country into the con- ble standard in operation. If there is, stitutional crisis of Watergate, which however, it is a double standard that was not resolved until the country had we invented, and invited the world to left Vietnam and President Nixon had apply. And-what is at times even been driven from office in midterm. more annoying-we find that we, too, The Soviets face no such contradic- must continue to apply it, and measure tions. A comment that a Soviet official ourselves by it. To hold ourselves to a in Afghanistan made to a Newsweek high standard is to invite judgment by reporter went to the very heart of the others according to that same stan- difference. Apparently acknowledging dard-that is the price that anyone the contempt in which the Afghan peo- pays who wants to uphold any stan- pIe now hold the Soviets, the official dard whatever. In this case, the stan- coolly observed, "Time changes every- dard is a standard of liberty. We can- thing. In another ten or twenty years, not really expect the Soviets to offer the the new generations of Afghans will Afghans a liberty that they withhold view our presence differently." No from their own people. But we can and pressure of public opinion or looming do expect our government to refrain constitutional crisis places any time from imposing repression on others limit on the Soviets' venture in Afghan- which we would find hateful at home. istan. They can stay there as long as Moreover, quite apart from ethical they want They are thus free to loftily considerations, we find that repression reckon time in generations-looking abroad is eventually inimical to liberty right over the heads of the whole pres- at home. In the long run, either the ent suffering and dying generation of repression abroad or the liberty at Afghans, in the expectation of a more home must give way. This is the di- pliant future generation. Yet in fact lemma the United States found itself in that latitude may not be the advantage in Vietnam. The United States had the that they seem to think it is; it may be military resources to stay in Vietnam only the latitude to persist ignorantly more or less indefinitely, but its spiri- in error, to compound mistakes. The - .